The Welsh National Anthem

        Mae’r Hen Wlad fy nhadau yn anwyl i mi,

        Gwlad beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri.

        Ei gwrol ryfelwyr, gwladgarwyr tra mad,

        Dros ryddid collasant eu gwaed

           Gwlad! Gwlad !  Pleidiol wyf i’m gwlad.

           Tra môr yn fur i’r bur hoff bau,

           O bydded i’r Heniaith barhau.

        The old land (home) of my fathers is dear to me,

        Land of poets and singers,  great ones of renown.

        Her brave warriors,  finest patriots,

        For freedom they lost (shed) their blood.

                Land! Land! (Wales!) - partial am I to my Land.

                As long as the sea is a wall to the most (pur) beloved country

                O may the Old Language (Y Gymraeg) endure.

‘Mae hen wlad fy nhadau’ was written in Tredegar around 1856,  a joint composition  by Evan James, a weaver and innkeeper by trade, who wrote the words,  and his son James, who composed the music. Its first performance was given by a 16-year old neighbour, Miss Elizabeth John, in Maesteg, where it was well-received apparently. James James subsequently performed the piece locally, accompanying himself on the harp. The reception on that occasion is not known, but when Iolo Trefaldwyn and Seth Roberts sang it as a duet at an eisteddfod in Cefn Mawr, near Wrexham,  the effect was described as ‘astonishing...the crowd joined in the chorus with electrifying effect’. In 1858 it was included in a collection of unpublished Welsh airs entered for a competition in the National Eisteddfod at Llangollen. At that time it was known as ‘Glan Rhondda’. Two years later, the adjudicator of that competition, John Owen, ‘Owain Alaw’ (1821-1883), published the words and melody in his own arrangement in a collection entitled ‘Gems of Welsh Melody’, and in this form the song achieved immediate widespread popularity. It was never formally adopted as the National Anthem of Wales, but at the National Eisteddfod held at Ruthin in 1868, it was sung at the end of each day’s proceedings, and after James James’s death in 1902, various obituaries referred to him as ‘the composer of the National Anthem’.

Oswald Edwards

A Gem of Welsh Melody

Coelion Publications, 1989